The Bristol/Bath Meta and myself have a good relationship with South Wales and Cardiff in particular being a short hop over the Severn Crossing via the M4. Last year Bristol Kate maven Rob "Mendax" Thompson took both the Swansea and Cardiff store championships and placed well at the Welsh Regional (his Sterling game vs Seb Atay becoming the stuff of legend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O18c2qbbYHY). This year, Rob was unable to make the Swansea Store Championship with Sean Terry taking his place, so Rob in particular was keen to defend his honour at the newly enlarged Firestorm Games. In attendance from the Bristol/Bath meta were Rob, Jack, Greg, Ben, Alex and myself. Martin from Gloucester became an honorary member of the crew for the day leaving a third of the field as representatives of the South West Massive.

Firstly, I'd like to gush about Firestorm games' new store. Not having been over to Cardiff since getting trounced at the Chronos Protocol tour event last year, I'd no idea about the size and scale of their new building down the road from their original location. Cavernous doesn't do it justice. There's a phenomenal space here for all types of gaming with excellent facilities, parking and very helpful staff. How Firestorm didn't get a regional is completely beyond me and Esdevium should seriously consider this venue for next year.

As this was the first SC I'd been to where Order and Chaos had been legal, I had been discussing some changes to both my runner and corp deck before the tournament. I've recently been giving Edward Kim a run for his money as I think his ability is pretty strong and can seriously disrupt the corp's plans. However, I'm yet to find a build that I think will perform consistently enough to be tournament effective so called up Mr Santiago again after some very strong recent performances. The main changes to my deck were the removal of a corroder and a parasite to make room for an eater, a breach as a backup fracter and a utopia shard for the final piece of influence. The combination of eater, security testing, desperado, gabe's ability and pheromones is an incredible economy generator if set up early and in the 2 games where things got online early I was netting 5 creds a pheromones counter and a datasucker token for my first click.

NOM NOM NOM indeed.

I had made major changes to my corp deck switching from a TWIY* based grail deck to NEH to allow me some extra influence, card draw and protection against the expected new eater nonsense that we've all been fearing. In reality, this untested version of my corp wasn't as effective as I'd hoped being neither fish nor fowl and will definitely need some adapting before regionals. Ironically I didn't see eater all day and seeing fewer grail ice as backup for those installed meant that overall my deck was even more porous than normal resulting in several losses that might have been mitigated with my previous deck. Obviously if I'd kept my existing TWIY* deck I would have seen nothing but Eater/Keyhole and been crushed horribly by the cutlery events...

The format of the tournament was 5 rounds of swiss and then old style top 8 knockout elimination (take THAT FFG with your fancy double elim!). Frankly I fancied my chances of making the top 8 with some recent solid results, though with strong players from Bristol/Bath and locally, I thought that top 4 might be pushing my luck...

Round 1: Jack (Bath)- MaxX + NEH

Jack and I play routinely on Wednesdays at Excelsior! and always end up playing each other at tournaments so there was very little surprise when we got drawn against each other on round 1. Jack recently made top 4 at one of Quinn's London Tournaments and is definitely one of the best players in the Bristol/Bath meta. I'd played vs his decks this week and had an idea of what to expect after they had crushed me horribly. I had the advantage of him being less familiar with my decks apart from his healthy respect for my grail ice. Jack won the psi game and corped first.

Jack was running NEH N.E.A.R.P.A.D which relies on 10 ice for R&D and HQ protection and an insane amount of remote spam. On Wednesday he managed an obscene 10 credit diversified portfolio thanks to 11 remotes. I was determined not to let him get away with it again.Checking every remote can be dangerous as psychic fields and snares! threaten to trap you with dedicated response team backup for the flatline if the runner is careless. TGTBT and other naked agenda play followed up with midseasons can cause major problems. I tried to check as many remotes as possibly but losing a psychic field psi game set me back majorly for tempo. Two naked astros scored meant that I had to get very lucky with R&D access and despite a useful RDI getting me close, Jack was able to score out for a 7-6 win. It had been a tense game and was pleased that I'd come close to stopping his remote shenanigans.

In the reverse, I was thrilled to see Jack lose much of his recursion via MaxX's ability. I didn't see many of my grail ice, but with MVP Chronos Project managing to take out the majority of Jack's heap prior to his Levy, I left him struggling to get in and scored out 7-6. That was one of only 2 games that Jack would lose all day.

Result: 6-7, 7-6 (2 prestige)

Round 2: Ryan (Cardiff)- Kit + RPI hadn't played Ryan before, but he was a brilliant and funny chap who seemed bemused at his later top 4 appearance due to his solid RP deck not dropping a game all day. He won the toss and duly started setting up his central defences to keep Mr Santiago taxed for time and money. It was during this game that pheromones, security testing and eater proved their worth. Time and time again I could build up the credits I needed to get me into Ryan's centrals to allow me see very little that I needed. An early HQ access allowed me to pinch a Future Perfect with the psi game and only having been shown NAPD by Ryan thanks to a celebrity gift, I was convinced that R&D should be investigated further. Unfortunately my barrier breakers were proving elusive meaning I was having to click through his eli's. Parasites had wormed themselves to the bottom of my stack and no sign of desperado meant that other runs were starting to become quite taxing, particularly following a purge of pheromones tokens after Ryan had scored an NAPD in a two deep remote. Enhanced Penis Protocols were in play meaning I often only could make one run per turn. My breach appeared. But with 4 credits still needed to get though eli on R&D and archives for sneakdoor runs it was not proving to be cheap to get anywhere. Two face down cards were worth checking in the trash. I managed to get in through an excalibur and paid the 4 for eli leaving me with 0 creds. Of course it was a future perfect and an NAPD which would have won me the game. The next turn I got enough credits for another try, but as I excitedly announced I was scoring the NAPD, Ryan rightly pointed out that he had an unrezzed card on the table and he'd like to Jackson back his agendas thankyouverymuch. Deflated I apologised for my sloppy play and 5 points duly disappeared from view. Ryan scored a Nisei shortly after and the game was pretty much a foregone conclusion from there with himitsu bako keeping me out of the remote and despite another Nisei being found in R&D Gabe left with another loss 5-7.

With 20 mins or so left for my corp game I was hoping that NEH would do it's thing. Kit's ability caused a few problems, but I managed to trash Ryan's refractor after putting a popup in front of a lancelot and with his other refractors already discarded the tempo hit meant I could start scoring. Thinking back after the game, I think he might have been able to win when he accessed an NAPD with us both on match point and forgot about his ghost runner credits. It's unfortunate that this was missed, but with his eventual top 4 finish, it didn't hold him back too much.

Result: 5-7, 7-5 (4 prestige)

Round 3: Sean (Swansea)- Sterling + NEH

I recognised Sean from the times he's attended the Near Earth Pub events I've run in Bristol and a quick check of my databanks confirmed that we'd actually played each other at the Cardiff Regional last year where he'd flatlined my Andromeda with a Fetal AI and I'd politely come round with Punitive Counterstrike and asked for my agendas back... Sean had recently won the 8 man Swansea SC so I expected a couple of decent games and wasn't disappointed. Opting to corp first I saw that he was playing with Datafolding and underground contacts as the majority of his econ setup. Sean was using the supplier to try and make his drip economy appear more cheaply and quickly became the target of a facedown making news sting. Luckily for me he'd previously discarded his other two suppliers which meant that he was going to have to work a bit harder to get set up. Obviously not taking this sitting down he proceeded to pinch 4 points of agendas in revenge setting me back considerably. The game wore on as my econ failed to turn up and despite managing to get another few agendas scored, his two RDI's and porous ICE on R&D resulted in him winning 5-7.

Sean was playing a fairly standard Astrobananas deck which then duly did it's thing despite my best intentions and a decent rig set up. There was definitely times where I wished I was Edward Kim when I spotted his Biotic Labour in HQ... 4-7 loss.

Result: 5-7, 4-7 (4 prestige)

Round 4: Dan (Cardiff)- Chaos Theory + HB:ETF

Feeling pretty crushed after the last 2 games and seeing my chances of a top 8 berth vanishing before my eyes I faced down Dan who I had seen before but never played. I opted to corp first and was pleased to see plenty of opening hand economy an astro, a merlin and a lancelot. Feeling ballsy I put the astro out naked with the lancelot in front of HQ and told him to come at me. He duly took his first turn to set up allowed me to score the turn 2 astro. I got some more economy, another 2 merlins and a beale. The beale went in a remote with merlin for protection with me sitting on 12 credits. Dan duly started running and ate 4 net damage from R&D. He then decided to check my "daily business show" in the remote with 1 card in hand. A rezzed merlin later and 10 net damage in the turn, dan was looking at a 7-3 flatline. Unfortunately I haven't got a 4 merlin for people to sign like CJ has, but feel that it definitely should be done.

Dan switched to corp with a bioroid heavy NB deck. aggressive running and clicking for access allowed me to score quickly with some good use of emergency shutdown and inside job to take an early 3-0 lead. 2 ichi traces left me with only 3 cards allowed in hand, but central pressure revealed a utopia fragment and I walked off with my only double win of the day. Pheromones again was vital in helping my economy.

Result: 7-3 (flatline), 7-3 (8 prestige)

Round 5: Ricky - MaxX + Foundry

Ricky's another player who has come to Bristol, but I've yet to face off against him. We both knew that a double win would probably put us in the top 8 and so two of the tensest games of the day followed. My 2nd MaxX matchup meant that I had a healthy respect for potential eater/keyhole activity so all 3 crisium grids were deployed and ultimately useless. Ricky lost his Levy to MaxX's ability early on and Chronos Project became a tempting prospect. Ricky clearly knew how to play around the grail ice and despite never seeing a code gate breaker was putting his Imps, D4v1d, mimic and corroder to good use to get in and steal as I was trying to score with a San San. I managed to get the Chronos out through the San San to reduce him to 3 cards in his stack, 5 cards in hand and no way to break code gates apart from tollbooth with D4v1d. Unfortunately he'd managed to destroy much of my ice with parasites and run events leaving R&D wide open. He had an obscene amount of datasucker tokens and a grimoire. I had a cyberdex virus suite installed and a jackson on the table. It was 5-5 but he was leaving me poor and I only had an NAPD in hand having business showed away an astro which I had more of a chance winning with than the lancelot I picked. He installed parasite on the lancelot on R&D and ran blowing it up with datasucker tokens. Inevitably he saw the winning agenda and I quickly realised that I could have purged viruses and added cards to R&D prior to his access. It was this misplay that would nag me for the rest of the day and I know that it certainly won't happen again. I was so close to milling Ricky (3 cards in hand at the end of the game) that I think I'd decided it was my best chance of winning and had blown more realistic options of securing the points. A lesson learned.

I hate foundry decks and their ability to glacier up quickly. An early encounter with a merlin left me staring the possibility of a flatline in the face, however I took my 4 net damage and escaped by the skin of my teeth. What followed was one of the luckiest games I have ever played where I managed to pinch an ABT with a same old thing/inside job, snipe hades fragment from a 5 card hand full of ice and get the winning NAPD with only 2 R&D accesses. Ricky was as frustrated with that game and I was with the previous one and we both went outside to cool down after the stress of the day started to take it's toll. We shook hands and congratulated each other for the close games whilst both frustrated that top 8 progression had slipped through our fingers.

Result: 5-7, 7-0 (10 prestige)

The rest of the results duly rolled in and I found myself 11th with a Strength of schedule of 62: highest of the day and reflected in my exhaustion from the days games.

Impressively I was the only person to have taken a game off Jack all day and Bristol/Bath/Gloucester players formed 5 of the top 10 players with Alex and Ben playing impressively for their first ever store champs. In the Knockout section, Jack beat Martin, Sean beat Jon, Ryan beat Nick and Rob beat Alex meaning that I had played 3 of the top 4 players for the day.

After an impressive double win in the swiss, Jack faced Rob again and lost on agenda points scored over the 2 games, with Sean similarly toppling Ryan whose RP deck remained undefeated. Rob and Sean then faced down for the championship title with Sean coming away with another victory taking both of Rob's former crowns.

TLDR: Another excellent day in Cardiff and actually a solid performance considering my SoS. I'm not satisfied with some of my deck changes, particularly on the corp side and card draw in gabe has been a real problem. Adding John M to the deck is a priority, but some useful tools will need to be taken away. The games were desperado didn't turn up were painful so I think I'll be borrowing one in the future. Today I realised I didn't need to put an extra agenda in my deck and would have lost a making news replacing it with more ice or econ. I need more econ assets to fire NEH's ability and I'm starting to wonder if I need to rethink my grail suite as people become more familiar with it. Here's to the Bristol Store Champs next week!

Shame you couldn't make it Callum: I enjoyed playing against you last year. Ryan was a top bloke. He was very funny-particularly his relief at top 4ing but losing so he could recover! Always fun to play in Cardiff and yesterday was no exception.

I was really, really hoping to play Ryan rather than Sean should I have made the finals, because having taken a deck more tuned for RP than NEH it was always going to be tougher playing Sean than Ryan.

king_mob wrote:Ryan had me at tilt every game because I was cracking up too much. Legend.

That damn RP deck tilts me everytime we play, Jinteki is my far my worst match up as a player and I loathe RP with an unholy passion so I've been asking to play against it quite a bit. We have a laugh playing every time but I loathe that dumb deck.

Reminds me one time Dan here was practising against it, he ran R&D and the top card he saw was the actions card for the Corp shuffled in by mistake, he instantly went on tilt and we were laughing ourselves silly.

Sixtyten wrote:Shame you couldn't make it Callum: I enjoyed playing against you last year. Ryan was a top bloke. He was very funny-particularly his relief at top 4ing but losing so he could recover! Always fun to play in Cardiff and yesterday was no exception.

Yeah I think we have a good crowd down here, we always have a laugh but to give credit to the netrunner scene in the UK there's a lot of top individuals out there.

This year I'm going to have some more time to travel to other Netrunner events so you might see me around at some tournament or another.

There's many flaws with double elimination. But I'm glad we don't typically play most agenda points in 2 games any more. 7-0 and 7-6 need to be equal value or the game is broken too significantly. Sounds like a good day though. Wish I could have been there.

If TOs are going to use non standard style for running tournaments (which of course they are free to do) it should be announced well before the event. It sounds like it turned out fine but someone could have turned up excited to play and felt really screwed over once the announcement was made.

I was surprised with the decision, but Jake's (TO) experience with the regional last year meant he didn't want to run it that way again. I can see benefits and weaknesses. It was nice that more people got a chance to get through, though only 1 of the 4-8 bracket made top 4 (as you might expect). The day still went on till nearly 8pm...

Great write-up Andy, very entertaining read. I don't know how people can remember that much of what goes on in Netrunner matches, it's mostly a blur of terror for me. I think the single elimination may have hurt my chances at the end, as my NEH was pretty leaky (although that may have just been lack of piloting experience). No complaints though, a really fun tournament.